


Scarred

by aleksandermorozova



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 20:48:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5512820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleksandermorozova/pseuds/aleksandermorozova
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“He made you into a—”</p><p>“Monster?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scarred

“What was it like?”

The question felt harsh and heavy as it slid off her tongue, like a boulder rolling downhill. Destructive and just as unstoppable. Nikolai tensed next to her almost immediately. The reaction passed, but not quick enough for her not to notice. Certainly not quick enough for him not to notice she had noticed.

She would have winced, she thought, or apologized if she thought such things would have helped. But the truth was they wouldn’t of. Nikolai had never expected delicacy from her. For it to appear, especially when she had brought up this, would have only been an insult. He would of laughed and said, _Apologies from the girl who punched me in the face?_ And she would of said, _that happened ages ago_ , and the question would be forgotten. Like he would prefer it to be, even at the cost of knowing she was treating him more like china and less like the privateer she had first known him as.

Alina did not wince or apologize. He did not laugh. Instead, a tight smile stretched across his face, gloved fingers sifting through golden locks of hair in a movement that reminded her briefly, in a painful way, of the Darkling. The timing of the action was coincidence, but it still sent a shiver down her spine.

“Which part?” Nikolai asked, giving one of the children bustling through the orphanage a charming smile. The little boy’s eyes widened, cheeks flushing, before he and the girl he played with dived away and out of sight. The sight of them seemed to make him reconsider his response. “Talk like this is best left out of places like these. Let’s walk outside.”

Alina did not take his offered arm immediately.

“Will you be avoiding the subject if I go?” she questioned quietly. The _again_ was not spoken, but was heard loud and clear between them. He sighed.

“No,” he mused. “I suppose not. Especially when you look like you want to throttle me every time I do.”

“So you knew you were changing the subject.”

“You knew that I knew.” His arm nudged towards her with polite insistence. “Are we going or are we waiting for the holiday to come first?” His smile was easier and more genuine this time around as she finally accepted. As they walked, most of the time was spent in silence; Nikolai’s thoughtful, Alina’s patient. Several times his mouth had opened just a fraction, as if finally grasping something intangible, though each and every time nothing came out.

Finally, he said, “I can’t explain it.”

She waited for him to continue, stopping her stride only when he did. His brows were furrowed, the lines of his body harsh. It was less about avoiding the subject this time, she thought, as it was him trying to come to terms with just what _it_ was. Another sigh blew past him and he looked away. It was almost unsettling, to see him so undone. He had perfected a thousand different masks. This was, at least in part, a single truth of him—and it occurred to her finally just what her question had demanded he give up.

“It was like being consumed,” Nikolai said. “From the inside out. Like the lungs I breathed out of weren’t my own. I remember some of it—” He frowned. “But not all. Mostly, I hungered.”

She did not ask for what.

“Do you know what the worst of it was?” he asked her. Not expecting a response, he continued. “After the first of it was done, the initial craving—the memory of it… I almost didn’t want to remember who I was.” He paused, here. “Imagine that? Someone as remarkable as me wanting to forget myself.”

“Nikolai,” Alina said firmly. “He made you into a—”

“Monster?” he offered.

“—thing you weren’t.” She glared. “You had no choice in it.”

Nikolai stared at her for several moments, the hazel of his eyes more golden brown than gray in the light of the setting sun as he took her in. She tried to think of a moment, then, when he had looked more tired. Found that she could not think of one outside of the time he had effectively dethroned his own father.

“Sometimes,” he said gently. “I’m not so sure of that.”

Alina’s face softened, but her grip on his arm did not. Her hand squeezed, as if she could give him strength with just that. The king chuckled.

“I reiterate. Not knowing is _definitely_ worse.”

“You don’t need to know,” Alina told him firmly. “I know, and the people who care about you know. That’s what matters for now.”

“So bossy. With an attitude like that, you really could of been useful during—”

“Walk me back home, Nikolai,” Alina said dryly. He bowed his head, and she did not need to see his face to know he held appreciation in his eyes. It seemed they both had had their fill of ghosts for the day.

“Yes, your majesty.”

“Please shut up.”

“Of course.”


End file.
